


If I Could

by rebeccaofsbfarm



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Abuela teaches Buck to cook, Domestic!Buddie, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23906827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebeccaofsbfarm/pseuds/rebeccaofsbfarm
Summary: Every time Buck is around Eddie seems to be singing the same song, but it's in Spanish and Buck doesn't understand the words. What he does understand is that it means something. It takes a cooking lesson with Eddie's abuela for Buck to find out the truth.
Relationships: Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 819





	If I Could

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by two songs:
> 
>  _I'll Sing a Love Song to You_ by Candi Station  
>  _Si Pudiera_ by Manuel Medrano
> 
> And while I am grateful to my friend that got shipped home from her Peace Corps deployment in Peru for her song recommendations and translation assistance, she will never read this.

Buck sometimes wishes that Eddie wouldn’t have a token argument with him every time Buck offers to make dinner. For Buck, it is a mutually beneficial offer. Eddie and Chris get to eat food that isn’t chicken nuggets or Kraft macaroni and cheese, and Buck doesn’t have leftovers for the whole week. He also knows that making dinner for the Diaz boys is the closest he ever feels to having a family outside of the station, but he chooses not to focus on it. He can’t put that pressure on Eddie, to include him in their family, when he has enough to deal with being a single dad.

Eddie helps him bring in the groceries, then tries to shoo Christopher away while he’s working, but Buck insists that he stay, setting him on the kitchen counter to watch as he chops vegetables and tosses them into a pan. The pan starts to sizzle, and he looks up to Eddie, “Can you finish these so I can start the sauce?”

Eddie looks hesitant. He has likened his cooking talents to a black thumb for gardening, and it is only after much convincing that he takes the knife and moves to the cutting board. Chris applauds him, “You can do it Dad!”

Eddie chuckles at the reinforcement from his son but begins to chop the carrots and celery.

“Can I call Abuela to tell her you helped?” Chris roasts him, and Eddie rolls his eyes as he picks the chopped vegetables up with the edge of the knife and his hand and drops them into the pan. Buck smirks at the way Chris has started to tease Eddie like he does.

“Abuela would tell us we had done it wrong because we didn’t have the radio playing in the background,” Eddie says. “That’s the only way she has every made anything. With love and the Spanish language radio station.”

“Well then we should do it like Abuela!” Chris shouts, and Eddie gropes for his phone, turning on his radio app and finding a station playing Latin music. Buck has no idea what the song is saying, but he enjoys the beat, and he loves the warmth he finds in the extended Diaz family. He has plans to get Abuela to teach him how to cook authentic Mexican, and now he feels like he has inside information.

He turns the stovetop down to simmer and watches as Eddie sings along to the song in Spanish, finding that it _does_ something to him. Eddie’s hips are swaying, his lips rolling over the words, and Buck wishes he knew them, knew what has Eddie smiling like that. Chris is laughing at his father’s singing, but Buck thinks he’s pretty good. Eddie starts to blush and stops mouthing along and Buck is sorry to see him shrink in embarrassment. Rather than convince Christopher to stop and have to explain to him that he had hurt his father’s feelings, Buck does the first thing he thinks of, and he pulls Eddie into a slow dance.

Eddie is shocked at first, but then sees how delighted Christopher is, cackling at them in the way that a child does when they find something genuinely hilarious, and he gives in. He lets Buck hold him lightly, spinning around the kitchen, and they’re hamming it up for Chris’s benefit, but their hands fit together so well and Eddie’s hand is splayed across his lower back, and Buck feels something genuinely frightening. To fill the charged space between them, he picks Chris up off the counter and pulls him in, the three of them swaying in the kitchen to the song.

Buck has his arms around both Diaz boys, and they feel full for the first time in ages.

“ _Que si pudiera darle vueltas a la tierra una y otra vez. Yo buscaría de alguien con tus mismos ojos. Con tus mismos labios, con tu misma boca y con tu misma piel. Que si supiera darle al tiempo otro poco de tiempo_ ,” and Eddie is singing along again finally which makes Buck feel a joy he didn’t know he was missing. As he sings the words, Eddie looks at him, and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. Instead he is singing the words like he’s saying something, and when the song ends, Buck knows that something has changed, even if he can’t put his finger on it.

Eddie offers to set the table, and rather than ask him to move, he reaches over Buck to get to the plates. His limbs stretch to get past Buck’s shoulder, and he swears that Eddie is watching him, so he tries to hide how he feels about being pressed against the stove by Eddie’s chest. He’s so close that Buck can smell his body wash on him and the heat radiating off of him. Before Buck can understand what he’s feeling, Eddie is gone.

“Hey Chris, what’s that song about?” Buck asks quietly, once Eddie leaves the room, so he won’t hear them.

Christopher shrugs, “My Spanish isn’t that good yet. Boca means mouth I think? And poco is small. Abuela has called me that before.”

Maybe Eddie had been singing about him having a big mouth? It wasn’t a lot to go on, but he swears there was something to that song that made Eddie look at him and actually _see_ something.

He finally combines the finished ingredients, adding the sauce to the chicken and pasta, before turning the stove off. He picks Chris up off the counter, and sets him on the floor, handing him his crutches and directing him to go to the table. He follows behind with the pot and insists on serving the Diaz boys before serving himself.

He waits and watches Eddie’s face as he takes his first bite and smiles when he looks pleased. It’s only once he has Eddie’s approval that he digs into his own plate.

After dinner, Eddie insists on doing the dishes since Buck did the cooking, so Buck finishes homework with Christopher at the table, and when he piques his ears, he can hear Eddie murmuring the song from earlier. His voice is warm and soft, and Buck can barely hear him over the sound of the faucet running, but he knows the sound is beautiful and the song is sweet.

Chris finishes his homework, and he looks exhausted, so Buck takes his backpack to the kitchen and offers to put him to bed.

Eddie nods, “Thanks. That gives me a chance to take the trash out. Grab a beer when you’re done and we can hang out for a while.”

He brushes his teeth with Chris, trying to teach him good habits, before tucking him into his bed. He only makes it a few pages into the story he picked before Chris starts to yawn, so he abridges some bits in the middle and closes the book at the same time his eyes fall closed. Buck leans over and kisses his forehead, and Chris smiles, “Night Buck.”

“Night, Superman,” he says, and closes the door behind him as he leaves Christopher to get some rest.

When he comes out, Eddie is already sitting on the couch, scanning through his Netflix before finding _Ozark_ , which they’d been binging together. Buck makes a move to go to the kitchen, but Eddie motions to the other end of the couch where he has already gotten Buck a beer, opened it, and it sits waiting for him on the side table.

Eddie looks so focused on the screen, waiting patiently to start the show. Buck feels the instinctual need to disrupt the peace and throws himself sideways onto the couch, his feet landing squarely in Eddie’s lap. He expects Eddie to shove him off, but instead he gets a sideways glare and a sigh. Surprisingly, Eddie leaves his feet there and starts the show.

As the show goes on, Eddie relaxes, and Buck isn’t even sure he notices when he begins rubbing Buck’s socked feet. Buck doesn’t mind, and eventually Eddie looks up for his consent, before he starts using his thumb to try to pull out the knots in his arch.

He’s not sure if it’s the pacing of the show or the distraction of rubbing his feet, but Eddie starts humming the song from earlier, and Buck finally interrupts him to ask, “You’ve really got that song stuck in your head, don’t you?”

“I guess so,” Eddie says, but goes silent once he’s been noticed.

Buck finally asks, “What’s the name of it?”

“ _Si Pudiera_ ,” Eddie says, after a moment of hesitation. “It means ‘If I Could’.”

Buck grabs for his phone and types it into Spotify, but Eddie is forced to take it from him and correct his spelling. Immediately, Buck pauses it to listen to it later. They settle back into the show, and he chooses to ignore the way Eddie’s hands rest on his legs and his thumb circles the bump on the inside of his ankle. If he had to think about it, he might question it, and right now he was too relaxed to do that.

* * *

Within a few days, Eddie finds him rinsing down one of the trucks and singing along to his headphones in his phonetic interpretation of the song. He doesn’t notice until he spots Eddie chuckling at him, and he seems so happy in the sunlight with rainbows catching in the hose stream that Buck feels empowered to continue, his impression of the song getting worse as he gets louder.

“See poodyera, de-vulva al tee-empo a algoon momento eee. Sir sincere para ver lo kee nun-ca puaday ver, tal vex esss kee mee ha pass-ado al-go!” he croons, hamming it up for Eddie.

“Eres ton tonto,” Eddie yells fondly, before taking the hose from him and blasting it just close enough to him to make him jump. He drops the hose, but the smile on his face continues. “You know, I came out here to tell you that you have a date.”

Buck’s heart jumps into his throat before falling again and _it’s stupid_ because why does he wish that was Eddie’s way of asking him out, when neither of them are gay and neither of them are interested. Right?

Eddie seems to watch his face fall, and the smile disappears into awkwardness.

He clears his throat, “My abuela said you can come over tomorrow after I pick up Chris. You can follow me if you want.”

Buck had finally asked Eddie to talk his abuela into lessons. Eddie of course has a personal stake in the process, as Buck has been cooking for them more and more, and Eddie loves his abuela’s cooking. Buck had fought dirty, getting both Diazs to mount a two-prong offensive, and he had been victorious.

“Tell her I’ll be there,” Buck says, and he wishes he could bring the smile back to Eddie’s face as easy as he had just a few moments earlier. “Do I need to bring anything?”

“Just yourself,” Eddie answers, and the corners of his mouth turn up like there is the promise of another smile in the future. "To be honest, I'm not even sure she can handle that."

* * *

The next day Buck follows Eddie’s truck to a well-worn neighborhood in East L.A. When they arrive, Chris meets them on the stoop, his arms wide, and Buck shoves past Eddie to get to him first. He picks him up, then spins him, taunting Eddie over Chris’s shoulder.

“Are you sure we can’t stay?” Christopher asks, and Eddie looks like he wants to say no, but Abuela shoos them.

“Buck and I have to go to _el mercado_ mijo,” she says, grabbing her keys from beside the door and gesturing to them to move along. Buck offers to drive, but she motions to her handicapped tag and insists.

Eddie’s grandma drives like no grandma he’s ever met, and he finds himself holding on to his seat as she speeds to the corner store. When they go inside, she knows exactly what she’s looking for, and it’s up to him to keep up.

As they walk the aisles, she gives him bits of advice about which brand works best and how to use different spices. He realizes that he still hasn’t asked what they’re making.

“Pork carnitas,” she answers. “It is Edmundo’s favorite. It was my Edmundo’s favorite too. The same handsome face and the same bottomless stomach.”

“I didn’t know Eddie was named after his grandfather,” Buck says, and he gently pushes her aside to take over steering the cart. This way she can traverse the aisles easier, and he can keep her from mowing down other customers.

“His abuelo, si. He wanted so badly for a grandson that when Eddie was born, his parents knew it was Edmundo,” abuela said, stopping in her tracks. “Edmundo was a good man. He was my great love, and I miss him every day. But I think he sent Eddie to watch over me.”

“Eddie is a good man too,” Buck says warmly, and abuela pats his arm knowingly. Buck blushes, though he doesn’t know why. If he doesn’t, why does she?

She orders the cut of pork from the meat counter, describing to him how to pick the right one, before throwing it into the cart. When they get to the front of the store, there is a line at the register, and he insists that he pay for their shopping trip, which she only accepts after much flattery and charm on his part. Eddie must get this from his abuela at least.

Up here the music is louder, and instead of the elevator music he would hear in a regular store, this store plays the same station he’d been listening to at Eddie’s. When he tunes into the song, he realizes that it’s the same one that he had heard in Eddie’s kitchen, that one that made him flustered.

“I know this song,” he says, and Abuela looks surprised, so he explains, “Eddie sang it to me. Well, he sang it _around_ me. Si pudiera?”

“My Edmundo sang this to you?” she says, and her face brightens. “Do you know what it means mijo?”

“Eddie said it meant “if I could” right?” he says, hoping he remembers correctly. “But that’s all he said. I don’t really know what it means. If I could what?”

Finally, they’re up to the register and, as promised, he pays for the groceries, but Abuela doesn’t answer him right away. He takes the grocery bags in hand and follows her to the car, and she’s smiling from ear to ear. He doesn’t know what to say, so he packs the groceries into the trunk, and when he climbs in, she reaches over to pat his knee.

“Mijo, you can tell me, you know? I am _libre de prejuicios_ , very open-minded,” she says as she begins to drive back to the house, somehow even faster than before. “You and Edmundo are very close.”

“We are,” he confirms, but he’s confused by what she means. Then it hits him, “Abuela, what is that song about?”

“It’s okay, mijo,” and she pats him on the knee again as they pull onto her street. “I wasn’t sure about my Edmundo when we met either. But I never looked back.”

He’s processing everything she said, and when they pull into the driveway, he moves to get the groceries from the trunk, his heart beating hard in his chest. Is this a panic attack? What is this?

She swats him away from the trunk, “I have this. _Go_. You need to speak to Edmundo. There will be other nights for carnitas.”

He wants to argue, but his mind is racing, so he nods and walks her as far as the front door so he can hold it open for her. She reaches up on her toes to kiss his cheek and whispers, “ _Sé valiente_ , mijo. Be brave!”

Buck finds that the drive to Eddie’s is the longest it has ever been, not by the ticking of the clock but by the way he feels like it’s already too late. He should have been there hours ago.

He pounds on the door and Eddie answers. He looks to see any sign of Christopher and sees none, so he asks, “Chris?”

“He was so disappointed he couldn’t stay with you that I let him go over to a friend’s for a sleepover,” Eddie explains, opening the door. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with my abuela? Is she okay?”

Buck hears the worry in his voice and immediately raises his hands in front of his chest in a gesture of calming, “Abuela is fine. We have a rain check.”

“But it’s not even raining?” Eddie jokes, and he closes the door behind them. Buck turns, and Eddie sees how serious he is. His face settles into one of concern. “Hey, Buck, what happened?”

“ _Si pudiera_ ,” Buck says, and he realizes that he has almost shouted it. For the first time, he pronounces it right. “What does it mean? Not even the words. I mean…I would like to know what the words mean, but what does the song mean to you? Why do you sing it when I’m around, and why did it make your abuela get all _libre_ on me in the grocery store?”

Eddie’s face settles, and his eyes get that far-off look again, the one that shows how deeply he feels and how much he _wants_. Eddie doesn’t answer him, and Buck is frustrated and confused and he just wants to _know_. He needs to know what secret Eddie has obscured with this other language and he wishes he had just Googled the words, but then they wouldn’t be standing here just a foot apart, and Eddie wouldn’t be staring into his eyes with so much _hope_ and…something else.

“It’s just a song Buck,” he says, but his tone is flat and Buck _knows_ he’s hiding something.

“Eddie,” his voice betrays how invested he is in this conversation. “We both know that’s not true.”

Eddie sighs heavily, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, tapping a few times until the song begins playing, and he sets the phone down on the nearest surface before taking Buck’s hands in his and slowly begins to turn. It’s like the first time when they danced in the kitchen with Christopher, but it feels so different.

The words begin, and Eddie leans forward, pushing Buck’s face into the crook of his neck as he begins whispering the translation in English, “ _I can’t anymore. I haven’t dreamt in three days. Four nights without singing. A long time with no one to talk to. Don’t know if I’m alright like this, or just a little alone and I don’t accept it. There’s a little bit of fear, of analyzing you. If I could go back in time to a moment and tell myself the truth, to see what I could never see._ ”

Buck pulls back to look into his eyes, but Eddie keeps singing, his voice as warm as his deep brown eyes and Buck is _falling_ , with only Eddie’s strong arms to hold him steady.

“ _Maybe, it’s that something has happened to me, that has made me understand. Maybe, it’s that life has shown me, that I don’t want any other person. Maybe, even though it’s too late, and don’t pretend to understand, I have to tell you that you make me happy_.”

Buck leans his forehead against Eddie’s, his hand traveling to the nape of his neck as Eddie pulls him closer. His fingers graze the hairs at the base of Eddie’s neck and elicits a grateful hum.

“ _That if I could go around the Earth, again and again, I would look for someone with your eyes, your lips…_ ”

He doesn’t let him go on. Instead Buck pulls Eddie forward into a kiss, and if he was falling before, now he has bottomed out. The song goes on, but he no longer hears it, lost in the sound of Eddie’s labored breathing as they kiss, all hands, lips and teeth. Finally, Eddie comes up for air, and Buck takes the opportunity to tuck into the curve of his neck, kissing the hollow of his throat, and there is so much to say, but he has no words, just his lips and his _love_ to show Eddie how he feels.

* * *

“Something smells good, mijo!” Abuela calls out as Eddie holds the door open for her. Buck wanted to surprise her after all the lessons she had given him, so he is hard at work in the kitchen. She finds him, and he leans down to get a kiss. “I knew you were my favorite grandson.”

“Hey!” Eddie shouts from the other room, and then he follows Christopher into the kitchen. He helps Christopher up onto the seat at the breakfast table, and then pulls out the other chair for his abuela. “He isn’t even your grandson!”

“Yet,” Abuela says shortly as she takes her seat. “Maybe you can make this one stick Edmundo? Otherwise who will make you my carnitas when I’m gone?”

Eddie blanches, but Buck is smiling from ear to ear. Abuela _loves_ him. But she isn’t the only one. In front of his grandmother and his son, Eddie’s hand grazes his hip and pulls him into a kiss. Christopher makes sounds of disgust, but he’s gotten used to it. He even asked Buck to come to show and tell this week, though Buck still wasn’t sure how he was going to show the bolts in his leg to a bunch of fifth graders.

He pulls back to find Eddie smiling and he knows implicitly that he is the one who put it there, and he feels so warm and _loved_ that it’s distracting. Distracting enough that Eddie can reach past him to steal a bit of pork from the pan.

Buck looks stunned, betrayed by his own affection, and Christopher is laughing at the look on his face.

“Chris, that’s what we call the bait and switch,” Eddie says paternally as he sucks the taste off of his fingertips. “Did you make the salsa yet?”

Buck gestures to the refrigerator and Abuela looks impressed, “How much food did you make me, mijo?”

“I make it for him,” he says, and he and Abuela share a knowing laugh. “That bottomless stomach. You weren’t kidding.”

Eddie rolls his eyes but goes to the refrigerator and takes out the salsa. Next to the refrigerator he sees the basket, covered with a dish cloth, that contains homemade tortilla chips. He steals a few before he even brings the basket to the table. Chris digs in, but Abuela is watching as Eddie returns to the stove, his arms wrapping around Buck from behind.

“Cariño, can you show me your new LEGO while Daddy and Buck finish dinner?” she asks, and Buck and Eddie barely notice. Instead they are swaying to the Spanish language station (because Abuela says it affects the taste and Buck agrees) and Eddie is humming into Buck’s neck. Abuela herds Christopher out of the kitchen and toward his bedroom to give them a moment.

“Do you know how good you look when you cook for me?” Eddie says, and he presses Buck against the stove. “Si pudiera te llevaría aquí.”

 _If I could I’d take you here_. Buck gets flustered. Eddie had been teaching him some choice phrases in Spanish so he wouldn’t get lost in translation again. Knowing exactly what he’s done, Eddie reaches over him, smirking, to bring down the plates and Buck is taken back to the night this all started.

“I can’t believe you knew then, and you didn’t tell me,” Buck teases him, and Eddie immediately knows what he’s talking about. They’ve returned to that night many times. He continues pulling silverware out of the drawer and chuckles.

“Buck, I told you everything,” he says, kissing his cheek before taking the dishes out to set the table. “It just took you a while to translate.”


End file.
